Virtual reality 3D environments:

• Spaceshooter: a first person shooter in a western-like virtual environments.
• Virtual Rod and Frame Test: a cognitive and perceptive style test adapted in VR.
• Starwalker: a platform of mini-games in VR initially developped for rehabilitation of lower limbs.
• Virtual Wisconsin Card Sorting Test a traditionnal Wisconsin Card Sorting Test adapted in VR.
• Virtual Spatial Cognition Evaluationt a virtual assesment of spatial cognition.

Other software:

• PhiVR a small tool used to i) describe the user profile in VR ii) quantify immersion and iii) predict user experience.
• Multipic a tool used to assess the inhibition skill of bilingual children.

Non-available software:

• Threat: a threatening virtual environment used to measure the sense of presence. Built for my master thesis in Neuro&Behavior sciences.
• Hanoi Tower VR: a virtual reality version of the Hanoï Tower which allows the accurate recording of all experimental times and errors. Developed for a PhD course in computer science.

None of these tools collect data externally. It is the user's responsability to ensure that all human data are protected and ethically gathered. All software licensed under CC-BY-SA.

Space Shooter

Reference empirical study

• A 13.5 minutes virtual immersion into a Space Shooter, using track controller turned into a pistol (1 shot per second). The train moves at 0.5m per second, which is a very slow linear visual flow (or very slow walk pace), but can be changed to induce cybersickness.
• 5 different possible conditions: normal, easy, hard, flexible, anxiogen. Normal and anxiogen have the same difficulty level, but anxiogen is more obscure and dark. Difficulty influences the health points of the enemy and their fire rate. In flexible difficulty, the difficulty adapts to the performance of the player. In the example video which follows, the difficulty is set to "flexible" at the most difficult level (because I'm very good at the game, which is a priviliege of making it). At "normal" difficulty, aliens have 3HP and fires every 1.5 to 3 seconds, randomly.
• An automatic tutorial teachs the participant how to play the game, and gives all the objective (protect the train by shooting at the enemies and their projectiles). The game stops automatically at the end. Press "Esc" to pause.
• Recorded variables: number of projectiles hitting the train, player's code (name), number of shots fired (player), number of shots landed (player), number of projectiles neutralized, average difficulty (flexible condition only), headtracking (15 Hz). Exports to .csv
• Music made by the Electro-Static Lobster. Thanks !

Virtual Rod and Frame Test

Reference empirical study

• A very standard HMD supported rod and frame test in virtual reality, originally developed by Witkin et al. 1948 in order to assess field dependence.
• 16 trials, with a systematic counter balancing of the rod and frame rotation: -27°/+18°, -27/-18°, +27/-18°, +27°/+18° x2
• Enter participant's code before beginning. Instructions are presented (audio + image) in French but can easily be modified or removed. Automatically export data (absolute °) in .csv with the date and time.

Starwalker

Click here for more information

• Starwalker is a research and clinical virtual reality video games platform project for a population of children with kinesiophobia. Kinesiophobia is defined as "an excessive, irrational and debilitating fear of movement and physical activity resulting from a sense of vulnerability to a painful injury or painful news". This phenomenon is at the heart of the pain chronicisiation process, generates significant anxiety as well as avoidance behaviours that may ultimately be responsible for the persistence of pain problems.
  
  
• Virtual reality is now seen as a promising tool in motor rehabilitation. A meta-analysis even presents virtual rehabilitation therapies as more effective than traditional therapies, and its effectiveness in some cases of kinesiophobia has been demonstrated. In addition, the analgesic effect of virtual reality is also known, notably thanks to Hoffman's pioneering work on patients with severe burns. Burn patients with extreme levels of pain were immersed in a virtual world called SnowWorld. They reported reduced levels of pain following particularly painful dressing operations. This pain distraction effect is often attributed to the sense of presence: the feeling that one is, in virtual reality, actually present in the virtual environment rather than the physical one. The sense of presence is defined in the Traité de la Réalité Virtuelle as the cognitive, motor and perceptual positioning of the subject between the real and the virtual world and is at the heart of virtual reality.
  
  
• The combination of the advances of virtual reality in rehabilitation and in pain reduction makes virtual reality a particularly interesting tool to accompany and help child patients in their lower limb kinesiophobia. Two other points should be highlighted in the contributions of virtual reality: firstly, it is a strong phenomenological experience which can offer children playful applications that probably provoke greater commitment from their part. Secondly, a concept related to proprioception and the psychology of perception seems particularly relevant in the case of virtual reality kinesiophobia: the "sense of embodiment", the sensation of owning, being and controlling a body. It would indeed be interesting to see if the subjects, visually cut off from their problematic limbs, would increase their capacities and amplitudes of movement via the control of a virtual avatar.
  
  
• More pragmatically, Starwalker is mini-games platform where participants interact with the virtual environment with their feet using the 3DRudder, althought Starwalker can also be played using a standart hand controller. The player is immersed in virtual reality and must catch or avoid objects, shoot at aliens, play bowling or pool against the computer. The program, developed in C# on Unity by the authors is currently in beta version. This version will be installed for first tests at the Centre d'Evaluation et de Traitement de la Douleur at the Clémenceau Hospital. The equipment (3DRudder, HTC-Vive head mounted display and computer) was financed by a Pièces Jaunes project. This project is under the CC-BY-SA licensing, so feel free to contact me if you want to try the software or take part in the project.

Virtual Wisconsin Card Sorting Test

Reference empirical study

• The executive functions evaluation is a HMD supported virtual environment. This environment has been used for my PhD thesis in order to measure the impact of the sense of presence and cybersickness (and other human factors) on performance in virtual reality.
• A very traditional WCST implemented in automatic virtual reality, validated by a neuropsychologist. The linear visual flow induces a small amount of cybersickness, which was used to observe inter-individual differences.
• A short automatic tutorial teaches the participant how to use the environment and take the test.

Spatial cognition evaluation

Reference empirical study

• The spatial cognition evaluation is a HMD supported virtual environment. This environment has been used for my PhD thesis in order to i) measure the impact of the sense of presence and cybersickness on performance in virtual reality and ii) evaluate the dynamic aspect of field dependence and visual re-weighting in virtual reality. These two studies were both published in Frontiers in Virtual Reality (Study 1 and Study 2). This virtual environment has 5 scenes that automatically play.
• 0 is a tutorial during which the participant can learn how to move in and interact with the virtual environment.
• 1 is a visit in the virtual environment, made of buildings from the Ancient Rome. Wood signs lead the way. The participant has to open some doors in order to reach the final point. But there are also "wrong" doors, which are closed. T All the wrongs doors tried are automatically recorded, along with the participant's position (4 times / seconds) and the duration.
• 2 is a spatial cognition assessment. In the virtual environment, the participant is asked different questions about what he saw or not during the visit. All the answers are automatically recorded.
• 3 is a new visit in the same virtual environment than 1, but the wood signs are gone. Participant is asked to redo the visit he has done in 1. All the wrongs doors tried are automatically recorded, along with the participant's position (4 times / seconds) and the duration.
• 4 is a a final question of spatial cognition evaluation, based on the second visit.

The PhiVR project

• The PhiVR project was originally conceived during my PhD Thesis and then conceptually updated in a MIT press article. It is based on the data from three experimental studies (Neuropresence, Spatiopresence, Edupresence) and the elaboration of a theoretical model (the Angle Phi model) of the relationship between human factors, system factors and performance in VR. The idea is to help researchers evaluate the immersive power of a system and / or environment, but also to assess an individual's cognitive profile and his or her ability to adapt to VR. This can be done in order to evaluate a priori the users who will benefit the most from VR, or a posteriori in order to standardize data.
  
  
• The software operation is simple and consists of three parts:
  • the user describes his/her immersive system by answering questions. This system is then evaluated based on a few components and a reliability score.
  • the user describes the cognitive profile of the individual evaluated, which is then evaluated based on a few components and a reliability score.
  • the user computes the predicted experience of the individual, based on the interactions between the system factors components and the human factors components. This user experience is composed of the expected level of cybersickness, the expected complexity of the interface, and the expected level of sense of presence. A global score is given, which can be used either to control for a posteriori data or evaluate a priori which individual can make the most of VR.

Project development

• This software is currently in Alpha version. For the moment, the computation requires the use of empirical data, either from the tested environment and the individual (using validated questionnaires). Future development will probably try to make PhiVR an independent software, which relies on independent question. It will also add the ecological dimension evaluation for a better consideration of the presence x performance relationship. Finally, with enough data, this software which is for now based on subjective interpretation of empirical data, might turn into a self learning machine learning program. Indeed, the random forest algorithms seem truly adapted to such processes.
  
• The purpose is to keep it simple, free and open-source in order to allow as many people as possible to benefit from it. The source code will be accessible as soon as the code is cleaned up and stable. If you have any suggestions, questions, collaborations or data that could help the development of this software, please contact me.
  

Computation

• Each question (with the exception of a few bimodal questions) has 4 potential values (1, 2, 3, 4). Each of them can be skipped if the user does not have the answer, but skipping a question decreases the reliability of the computation.
• System factors are composed by 4 components (System quality, Environment quality, Interface quality, Cybersickness induction) composed by the sums of the values of 26 questions. System factors reliability score is the sum of the unaswered questions.
• Human factors are composed by 3 components (Video game experience, Cybersickness susceptibility, Sense of presence susceptibility) composed by the sums of the values of 16 questions. Human factors reliability score is the sum of the unanswered questions.
• User experience is composed by 3 components (Expected cybersickness, Expected interface ergonomics, Expected sense of presence). User experience reliability score is the product of the first two reliability scores.
  • Expected cybersickness is the product of the mathematical mean of [Cybersickness induction, System quality] and [Video game experience, Cybersickness susceptibility].
  • Expected interface ergonomics is the product of [Interface quality] and [Video game experience].
  • Expected sense of presence is the product of the mathematical mean of [System quality, Environment quality] and [Video game experience, Sense of presence susceptibility].
  • Global expected user experience is the sum of [Expected Cybersickness, Expected interface ergonomics, Expected sense of presence].

Multipic

• Multipic is a Unity3D (optimized for android, pad resolution) software. It is used to measure inhibition skills among bilinguals chidlren.
• First, the participant enters the name of the participant. Then, the participant writes his or her name.
• During the first part, Multipic will randomly present 50 drawings, with 25 of them being cognates, and 25 of them non-cognates. All drawing are part of the multipic data base (https://www.bcbl.eu/databases/multipic/) from Duñabeitia et al. (2018). The participant has to orally give the name of the drawings.
• After a little test, the second part starts: the participant has to write the name of the 50 item. However, 8 distractors (in english) are randomly placed around the drawing.
• After the 50th drawing, the software automatically saves and stops. The name of the participant, each screen shot of the drawing, as well as the reaction time before starting to write a name are saved locally.

Bonus: Timmy the Bugs Bully

Click here to play the game

• A bonus for scrolling down this far : Timmy the Bugs Bully.
• A pixel-art video game (Tower defense) made in 48 hours during the Global Game Jam 2024 on Unity3D.
• In TIMMY the bugs BULLY, you play as the new kid in the block. You just arrived in a strange town, and you meet your 10 years old neighbor, TIMMY. TIMMY wants to show you his favorite place in the neighborhood to play, and takes you to a waste ground to have some FUN! Soon enough, you start to understand the reason for this place to be his location of choice, there's a Lot of bugs running out of some pipes. TIMMY has a strange fascination with BUG PARTS, and his most-liked game is to COLLECT them on living specimens. If you want to be TIMMY's new best friend, you'd better learn to play this strange game...